Like last year, the prestigious sushi restaurateur Onodera Group and the wholesaler Yamayuki won the centerpiece - a 212-kilo bluefin tuna caught off the Aomori prefecture in northern Japan - for 36 million yen.
"It has all the qualities of a good tuna," commented sushi master and Onodera boss Akifumi Sakagami in front of journalists about his acquisition.
“We had dark years” due to the health crisis.
"I hope we can provide happy moments for everyone with occasions like this," he added.
The sharp increase over one year reflects an improvement in the market trend, after three years of falling prices due to the pandemic, which particularly weighed on the Japanese restaurant sector.
But the record price for a tuna reached in 2019 during this traditional auction (333 million yen, or 2.7 million euros at the time) is still very far.
The self-proclaimed "king of tuna" Kiyoshi Kimura has long reigned over this symbolic event and offering the winner strong publicity, and it was this restaurateur who paid the record price in 2019.
But in recent years, Mr Kimura has been less of a spendthrift, citing the pandemic.
© 2023 AFP